Art Explained

The Disrobing of Draupadi

Technical examination uncovers the creative process of a work attributed to the Indian painter Nainsukh.

Inspiration

Collioure in Color

Over the course of a single summer, Henri Matisse and André Derain collaborated with Amélie Matisse to create new forms of sensory expression.

Women’s History

Women in the Studio

Louis Lang’s Art Students presents an intriguing window into the professionalization of women’s art education in the United States during the nineteenth century.

On View

The Paradox of the Fool

Unpack the peculiar ways the jester challenged the medieval social order

Art-Making

The Visual Games of Juan Gris

How the artist’s unorthodox techniques fool and delight the eye

Power & Privilege

The Death of Socrates: New Discoveries

Technical examination of Jacques Louis David’s masterpiece reveals that the refinements seen in the artist’s preparatory drawings didn’t end when he began painting—rather, they continued through all stages of its execution.

Power & Privilege

Prisons Real and Imagined

In Jacques Louis David’s The Death of Socrates (1787), a parable of principle on the eve of the French Revolution.

Portraiture

Great Women Artists

Three painters radically reenvision the role of women artists around the time of the French Revolution.

Nature

The Rinpa Experience of Nature

How painters in Edo-period Japan reinvigorated artistic traditions and idealized the past.

Black History

Inside the Studio

Decoding the symbolism of Kerry James Marshall’s 2014 painting Untitled (Studio).